"Well, maybe you're right. I see you last summer a-puttin' up a skeercrow to keep the poor, hungry little birds of the air from gittin' the peas that they needed to sustain life. An' I said, What a pity that the best woman I ever seed should tell lies to the poor little birds that can't defend theirselves from her wicked wiles! But I see that same day a skeercrow, a mean, holler, high-percritical purtense of a ole hat and coat, a-hanging in Brother Goshorn's garden down to the cross-roads. An' I wondered ef it was your Methodis' trainin' that taught you sech-like cheatin' of the little sparrys and blackbirds." "Yes; but Jonas--" said Cynthy, bewildered. "And I see a few days arterwards a Englishman with a humbug-fly onto his line, a foolin' the poor, simple-hearted little fishes into swallerln' a book that hadn't nary sign of a ginowine bait onto it. An' I says, says I, What a deceitful thing the human heart is!" "Why, Jonas, you'd make a preacher!" said Cynthy Ann, touched with the fervor of his utterance, and inly resolved never to set up another scarecrow. "Not much, my dear. But then, you see, I make distinctions. Ef I was to see a wolf a-goin' to eat a lamb, what would I do? Why, I'd skeer or fool him with the very fust thing I could find. Wouldn' you, honey?" "In course," said Cynthy Ann. "And so, when I seed a wolf or a tiger or a painter, like that air 'Umphreys, about to gobble up fortins, and to do some harm to Gus, maybe, I jest rigged up a skeercrow of words, like a ole hat and coat stuck onto a stick, and run him off. Any harm done, my dear?" "Well, no, Jonas; I ruther 'low not." Whether Jonas's defense was good or not, I can not say, for I do not know. But he is entitled to the benefit of it. CHAPTER XXXIX. JONAS TAKES AN APPEAL Jonas had waited for the coming of the quarterly meeting to carry his appeal to the presiding elder. The quarterly meeting for the circuit was held at the village of Brayvllle, and beds were made upon the floor for the guests who crowded the town. Every visiting Methodist had a right to entertainment, and every resident Methodist opened his doors very wide, for Western people are hospitable in a fashion and with a bountifulness unknown on the eastern side of the mountains. Who that has not known it, can ever understand the delightfulness of a quarterly meeting? The meeting of old friends--the social life--is all but heavenly. And then the singing of the old Methodist hymns, such as "Oh! that will be joyful! Joyful! joyful! Oh! that will be joyful, To meet to part no more." And that other solemnly-sweet refrain: "The reaping-time will surely come, And angels shout the harvest home!"